I’ve always wanted to fish and any time I see a fishing trip on a board I ask my parents but they just say ‘No, we’ve already booked a snorkelling trip’ or something like that!

I had a brief chance at fishing in Ilha Grande but it was off a boat and I didn’t catch anything. On Boipeba we met some Americans and some Brits and before the snorkelling trip the manager of our Pousada gave us fishing line and hooks so we tried but lost a weight.

Then a local fisherman helped us and brought us prawns as bait but that didn’t work. After saying goodbye to our new friends there was a man standing on the rocks who had a big net!!! He threw the net in and pulled it up with thousands of little fish. Me and Zoe grabbed lots of them and we talked to the fisherman in sign language.

After that there was another local fisherman who we followed to his fishing spot. We stood about 3 metres apart. He showed me how to throw it in. You spin it round your head and then you let go in the direction that you want it to go. It goes pretty far as it has a weight on the end.

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I awoke today to the sound of rain. Coming from the UK this is something that I should be used to but it felt different, maybe in the way that a holiday cocktail tastes great on the beach but when you try and recreate it at home it is just not the same but more likely it is because for the first time in a month on our gap year we can really relax.

South America, Brazil and especially some of cities we have visited have a reputation for KRE (A joyful new TLA we recently discovered for ‘kidnap, ransom and extortion’!) as well as petty everyday crime like mugging, pick pocketing etc. While I am sure there is an increased threat and these things do happen only bad news sells newspapers (maybe it is our fault in wanting to read about other people’s misfortunes as apparently only 30% of reporting is good news!) and you don’t hear about the many fantastic, friendly, helpful people you meet.

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We’ve just taken off on a flight out of Rio, on our way to Brasilia, with fabulous views over Sugarloaf and the many bays and islands of the city. It’s exactly 4 weeks since we arrived in Rio and began our family gap year! The time has flown!

Copacabana beach, Sugarloaf to the right of the wing and Christ the Redeemer sits atop the peak on the right of the pic with his head in the clouds!

We didn’t expect to stay in Rio de Janeiro state for a month. To be truthful, (and to the horror of many of our friends) we didn’t have much planned for Brazil at all

Keeping Ben, Zoe and Lara alive, fit and healthy is our top priority. As kids they are inquisitive, independent and prone to getting distracted by anything that looks fun or interesting. Within minutes of our arrival on Ilha Grande Ben had caught the biggest ant you never wanted to see. I am pretty sure Ben hasn’t been bitten by ants as he was super confident. I then imagined him playing with a local spider which may not be as harmless as our homegrown Daddy Long Legs More

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We are on the island of Ihla Grande about 2 hours bus ride and an hour ferry West from Rio. A big and welcome change in scene from a bustling metropolis to an unspoilt island population 6100. Our 2nd apartment in Rio was in Copacabana about 10 minutes from the beach and surrounded on 3 sides by favelas (extremely poor and often dangerous districts) just a couple of blocks away. I am not sure if the constant police car presence on the corner of the small park outside our door was reassuring or a warning?